Year 13 2024/2025 - support, discussion and looking after each other - continuation from year 12 thread

[elkiedee]

I've just realised that the year 12 2023/2024 thread is full - oops! - last message on 16 August - don't know if someone started another continuation thread but I can't see it. This coming year DS1 does A levels and university applications, DS2 will be in his GCSE year.

If there is a thread already started please let me know.

Hope your DS feels better soon, @mumonthehill. Much sympathy to him!

Oh no! Best wishes to your DS.

Oh dear - poor thing - my eldest had that before Christmas it’s unpleasant.
Hope school will let him sit them once he’s better

Hope he feels better soon. We had norovirus before Christmas and it was really horrid.

Hello 👋
@mumonthehill I hope he's feeling better soon

Been a while since I've posted here. DS2 is doing really well, he's had offers from universities, all below his predicted grades. This was unthinkable at even the start of 6th form. Though his preference is one I'm not sure is the best fit for him, but he's quite adamant.

Good luck to all our young people

that's a lovely update, @PennywisePoundFoolish . So nice to hear that things are working out so well for your DS. Is his first choice far from home?

Yes, it's far, but all his choices are tbh. A young lad who I worked with had a terrible experience there due to not making any friends as very different backgrounds etc. And my son is like a less confident version of him. But I thought staying on a 6th form was a terrible idea so hopefully he'll be fine if he does go there

Good to hear positive news. Ds school a bit tricky about him missing mocks but could do very little about it. Hoping ds will firm his choices asap but he is now talking about a gap year which is a bit unexpected. I was banking on only 3 more years of supporting a dc at uni having just finished with ds24!!!!

Sorry they were tricky about him being ill. Has he said what he'd like to do on his gap year?

DS2 (and 1 other) was given the wrong paper for his mock yesterday which was only discovered when they handed them in! The school's response is, don't worry It won't happen in the real exams as they're sealed, but I'm just baffled at how this could happen. DS2 is unfazed so I'm not making a fuss of it.

Wrong paper is not great and must have bern a bit disconcerting for them! Yep apparently he might go to Australia and get a coaching job for the sport he does. Not that he currently has the qualifications for this but apparently he will do asap! He is very independent but this is all a bit of a surprise but looks like we will have to go with it for now. Reality might kick in when he cannot actually get a job!!!!!

DD just received an offer from Durham for Economics but just announced she's not that interested!

@Tiggerspal that is a fab offer to get. Interesting that she does not want it, where is first choice?

I know, we're really pleased. I mentioned in a previous post that she was really underwhelmed on our visit. She felt the lecturer giving the subject talk sounded really bored to be there, there was no passion about the subject and, unlike all the other places we'd been, there was no student representative to speak or answer any questions.

Her overwhelming message she left with was that the Uni seemed to think that you should be grateful to get an offer and they didn't have to sell themselves - that just being 'Durham' was enough.

In contrast, she loved Exeter, Nottingham and Leeds (still waiting to hear from Bath). She doesn't have a favourite at the moment, we're booked in for offer holder days but she's said she's not going to bother going up to look at Durham again.

Personally, I think it's a shame and she should at least go and look at it again but its, quite rightly, her decision.

Tbh dd was exactly the same about Durham. I loved it but she was underwhelmed. She turned down an offer from them in favour of Bristol, which she is loving.

I'm very much of the view that they need to be happy to do well, and so "vibes", for want of a better word, matter at least as much as reputation or ranking. DC1 went right off the uni that she thought would be her first choice after a very "meh" open day experience.

Mocks all done here. Sounds like they were a bit of a mixed bag, but results not available until March. I am getting a bit twitchy as she is not really focused on college work at the moment, and her first choice uni wants high grades. Music performance (a live recital) is her first exam in the last week of March.

@PennywisePoundFoolish , so glad to read your update!

I think how a place feels to the person who is going to be there is really important - even though it's just a snapshot and other factors can play a role. DD has an Oxford offer - at the moment it's her only one, but I'd absolutely encourage and support her to choose somewhere else if she thought she'd be happier there even though turning down Oxford/Durham etc feels like a big deal.

DD is wading through coursework here. I've just had a letter from my other kids' school saying there are 45 schooldays until GCSEs, so it must be around the same for Y13 exams, which is a sobering thought!

DS had an offer from Southampton which he’s pretty happy with; waiting to hear from Imperial and Bristol. ICL will depend on ESAT results which we don’t know yet. The waiting is hard.

agree with others about vibes and atmosphere- DS visited Sheffield and Nottingham and decided against both. He found Nottingham disorganised, but he liked Sheffield’s engineering department, it’s one of the best, but he decided it’s just too far away north.

Similar umming and erring going on here. DS now has all but one offers in (the last is an interview at Manchester) for MPhys. He's going to go to the offer days but is leaning towards Sheffield over Durham. I'm not sure if that's just because the offer is a bit lower, because it's nearer or something else. But I'm encouraging him to go to the various offer days for both of them before making a decision. We should also get updated predicted grades from school fairly soon, following mocks, so that will should give him some perspective as well.

My daughter has decided she is 100% York. She is awaiting an Edinburgh offer, she won't withdraw as wants to see if she gets one but definitely won't go.

Durham is second choice. I personally preferred Exeter but it's her decision.

Yep, it's their decision and they do need to be happy wherever they end up.

I thought DS was going for Nottingham as he loved the course but he may not. We have an added complication that his sport and the coaching offered is very important. So we are still in discussions!

So what do you think of this?

DS has just had an email from Bristol telling him they will not be offering to him for the course he wants (Aerospace Engineering) but they would encourage him to reapply for Civil, Electrical or Engineering Mathematics. They say his application “did not rank as highly as others.” I find that hard to fathom as he has been predicted four A stars ( he already has Maths A level A star, Further Maths, Physics and French to go).

What’s going on here? do you think they’ve filled all their places and are declining based on numbers? I did worry when he waited til January to get his UCAS form in that that might have an effect. I know the deadline for equal consideration is 29 January - but this doesn’t feel like equal consideration. What am I missing?

We’ve talked about it and I’ve suggested he speak to his school Uni coordinator tomorrow who might have some insight/ might speak to Bristol to see if they can elaborate on their reasoning. In practical terms, he’ll probably do wha they want and reapply.

(Also, they say if you reapply you cannot switch courses during the degree - I find that hard to believe too).

Tbh ds wanted to apply to Bristol for aerospace but I knew how ridiculously hard it is to get in. I don't know what else they expect. At the open day we were told that unlike most places, personal statements and out of college experiences count for a lot.

@MotherOfCatBoy did they make an alternative offer for this year, or are they expecting him to reapply in the next admissions cycle? The latter would be a big ask if there's no guarantee of a place...

This year. He’s not too keen on the other courses though.